Posted
by
BeauHDon Friday October 27, 2017 @08:25PM
from the overly-sensitive dept.

YouTube has rolled out a new algorithm that the company says will more accurately reflect YouTube's guidelines for ad-friendly material and result in fewer videos being flagged as advertiser-friendly. "It will supposedly reduce the number of demonetized listings by 30 percent, so 'millions more videos' will be able to make money off the full range of advertisements," reports The Verge. From the report: A YouTube manager writes that the new algorithm was trained by nearly three months' worth of human reviews, starting after YouTube added a manual appeals process for creators in August. Theoretically, this should narrow the range of false positives -- videos that were incorrectly flagged for promoting drug use, using excessive profanity, highlighting gratuitous violence, or otherwise featuring content that advertisers might find objectionable. It's being applied retroactively, so creators who didn't appeal could still get some old videos remonetized. Google also encourages people to keep appealing potentially incorrect flags, because "this updated system is an improvement, but it's not perfect."

Basic ad-block plus on Firefox, and I have never seen a youtube ad there. I hadn't even realized youtube had advertisements at the start of videos until I started trying to use youtube on my TV instead of computer.

For the TV, I have a basic adblock running on my router. It does not block all ads though, but I think it is blocking some. I need to rework the blacklist some more though. When I do see an ad on youtube I will often skip it, and sometimes I'll skip the stupid video altogether.

I get a little money from YouTube ads. It doesn't come anywhere near to paying for the hours that go into making my content. I'm okay with that but the more money I get the easier it is to justify the time spent. I used to be like you and think I was cool for knowing what an adblocker is.

Then you should complain to YouTube that too many people arenâ(TM)t watching the ads. I started blocking the ads when 15s became an unskippable 1:30. At one point they were even allowing full other YouTube movies as âoeadsâ although they eventually became skippable after 30s.

And the worst thing is that I donâ(TM)t care for any of the ads, I donâ(TM)t need a new car, Iâ(TM)m too poor to buy most of the luxury items and Iâ(TM)m really not interested in makeups and perfume.

I get a little money from YouTube ads. It doesn't come anywhere near to paying for the hours that go into making my content. I'm okay with that but the more money I get the easier it is to justify the time spent. I used to be like you and think I was cool for knowing what an adblocker is.

I love that this got modded troll. People are really touchy when it comes to their perceived entitlement to be entertained for free.

Yeah, and you can also become active in pushing for adservs to be more responsible and ethical about things like the malware risks involved. If you are in a position to choose what adserv is used for a site? Try to pick one that at least tries to keep from being a malware vector. Don't just whine about adblockers being used, start doing your part towards making it safe to turn them off or poke holes in.

I have 1 browser with an ad-blocker and 1 without. I use the no-blocker browser when I want to be signed in to Google and rate or comment on YouTube videos. I don't mind getting a 5 second YT ad or one I can skip after 5 seconds with that browser, but when it gets too long I switch back to my other browser (with blocking). I don't have the time or inclination to put up with 30 second ads, sorry Google. That's why I don't listen to radio or subscribe to cable. Even commercial skipping pisses me off.
So

It is 2017 people. Who is still viewing Youtube without an adblocker???

In 2017, when was the last time you were able to go to a Web page that did not require you to turn off your adblocker?

I think I've only run across a couple, it was 2016 when I saw a lot and that tended to mark the last time I visited that site. I still get to a lot of places, and a few attempts to hold content hostage for my turning off my adblocker may have gone unnoticed because I also require scripts get whitelisted, and none of the places I dropped are particularly missed.

I prefer not having to deal with prying malware off my systems. As long as they don't show awareness and respect for the fact that I don't want to

My GF refused to install one until I stealthily put Ublock Origin on the living room gaming/vr rig I set up. After a couple of weeks of browsing on that, she was actually angry about how shitty the internet is without an ad blocker.

Just in case you are serious... I actually prefer to see the videos uploaded by people who are not trying to make a profit. They generally don't make an irritating intro sequence to announce their stupid video. Let's see an example:

Or you could be an adult, realize that creative people need to be paid too and pay for your content directly if you don't want ads. I pay for YouTube Red, Hulu's no ads tier, and Amazon Prime for that very reason.

People do NOT need to be paid for half of the crap on youtube. They're uploading clips from a TV show, it's not their content, why pay them? Why should I have to sit through an ad to watch a movie preview - the movie preview already is an ad, so why watch an ad before I can watch an ad??

The advertising industry is evil. It is one of the primary sources of malware, it is constantly in your face with annoying or harmful ads. If someone makes their money from this industry then I don't have to support you. T

I honestly would be quite happy to whitelist any ad group that makes a point--openly, publicly, and in both words and actions--of making sure that they don't serve as a malware vector.

If they really wanted my love? Let me also flag offensive ads, ads which are betting that the viewer will forget that they hate them but remember the brand, and say flat-out that I don't & won't for the foreseeable future use that product so stop showing me ads for it.

is folks flagging stuff as 'controversial' because they disagree with it. Lots of the left wing channels got flagged. But even some science channels got flagged by the anti-climate change folks and the 'intelligent design' crowd.

is folks flagging stuff as 'controversial' because they disagree with it. Lots of the left wing channels got flagged. But even some science channels got flagged by the anti-climate change folks and the 'intelligent design' crowd.

The simplest solution would be for Google to simply say "all or nothing".

I've never understood why companies want to wade into arguments about what is acceptable speech. It's killing Hollywood, the NFL, CNN, the NYT, the professional lives of many high-profile people, and a whole lot of companies such as Twitter and Kelloggs.

Google could step up and say "It's not our job to regulate speech. If you want to advertize with us, it's all or nothing". It would be simple, easy, and cheap to implement.

As a second choice, they could say "If you want to specify which YouTube videos your ads get served to, give us a list. Otherwise, it's not our job to regulate or even *categorize* speech".

Trying to second-guess what advertizers find objectionable is a foolish goal.

If the advertizers have concerns, it should be their job to police it.

it was their old system. It lead to a few adverts showing up on Neo-Nazi channels. The advertisers freaked out thinking they'd be associated with supporting Nazis and pulled their ads. Like it or not youtube, like tv, has to worry about offending people since people who get offended are loud. Annoying, but loud.

Which is the real problem. It's retarded to think people will associate you with the video content, it's obvious you're just advertising on the site as a whole.

The problem isn't just associations, but that you may have an objection to advertising to particular group. If I sell Nordic clothing, I may have a real objection to neo-nazis even seeing my ads and buying my products. If I sell condoms, I may have a real objection to my ads being shown on channels which will cause a barrage of hateful mail and phone calls.

I think the advertisers should be able to choose, but I think they should be provided with enough information to make informed choices. Overly broad

Which is the real problem. It's retarded to think people will associate you with the video content, it's obvious you're just advertising on the site as a whole.

The problem isn't just associations, but that you may have an objection to advertising to particular group. If I sell Nordic clothing, I may have a real objection to neo-nazis even seeing my ads and buying my products. If I sell condoms, I may have a real objection to my ads being shown on channels which will cause a barrage of hateful mail and phone calls.

I think the advertisers should be able to choose, but I think they should be provided with enough information to make informed choices. Overly broad classifications do not seem all that useful.

SRSLY? Your examples require blocking of viewers, not ads. Do you think that a Nazi is somehow not capable of looking at your ads, or that the Duggar's won't ever see an ad for condoms?

If an advertiser wants only a specific audience and no other to see their product ads, there is no solution.

SRSLY? Your examples require blocking of viewers, not ads. Do you think that a Nazi is somehow not capable of looking at your ads, or that the Duggar's won't ever see an ad for condoms?

I am not a binary thinker, and do not think everything has to be black or white, win or lose, success or failure. I think a reduction in exposure to unwanted audiences is a worthwhile thing in itself, even if only partially effective.

Well then you are the only advertiser with a conscience.
Kudos to you, but the rest of the advertisers think "annoying you" and "advertising" are synonyms.

It's actually a decent portion of the advertisers who think that, and it's both the traditional and probably-true view--after all, just because you might not be in my target demographic or a potential sale now doesn't mean you won't be in the future, or in a position to lose me a sale.

It is, however, easier to confuse 'annoying you' with 'advertising' because it does admittedly increase brand recognition--but that may not necessarily translate into the sort of positive image that will get you sales, and if

they just want it to work. Youtube promises advertisers that their algorithms will target likely buyers to push them over the edge into becoming customers or find those folks who are forgetting your brand and bring them back to the fold. The last thing and advertiser wants to do on youtube is the hard work of figuring out who to market to. If they were going to do that they wouldn't need youtube...

Thing that's weird is that the folks who serve up these ads haven't figured that out. Of course it will take a little work, but the Television industry has been doing this for years.

Scale is the difference. TV channels serve the same dozen ads on a hundred ad time slots each day. YouTube serves millions of different ads on billions of videos each day.You might be able to pick up a handful of sand, but moving the entire beach is a different matter altogether.

Well, the alternative is total failure. There is absolutely no impediment to having different packages of advertisements tailored to specific demographics. And no reason that a Youtuber cannot pick and choose say a conservative or liberal package, or one for older people or younger people's interest. If I have say a technical video I produced, I don't even want a Depends advertisement on it.

This is about as much rocket science as a file suffix. I'd even say that the first internet ad server service that

Which was really only advertisers being politically correct, YouTube couldâ(TM)ve let the whole thing blow over and/or allowed a way for advertisers to specify channel filters. Ad companies would never have used it because they really donâ(TM)t care as long as people see the ads and buy the stuff and everyone else wouldâ(TM)ve been happy and the SJW appeased.

it was their old system. It lead to a few adverts showing up on Neo-Nazi channels. The advertisers freaked out thinking they'd be associated with supporting Nazis and pulled their ads. Like it or not youtube, like tv, has to worry about offending people since people who get offended are loud. Annoying, but loud.

While most reasonable people would have no issue with demonetizing Nazi or White supremacist channels, Youtube's original "solution" ended up as people trying to squelch others.

The Young Turks or the MGTOW channels might have opinions that some folks don't like, but the concept of trying to put them out of business simply because you don't like their opinion is dumb.

Its a little amusing that the middle-far left has discovered a tool once used mainly by the religious right. Boycotting only works a smal

First off, I deplore the ideals espoused in _Mein Kamp_, and its sequel. Furthermore, I found _White Man's Bible_ illogical, irrational, unethical, immoral, and unjust.

All that said, demonitising video advocating/utilising those philosphical/theological/political positions, or anything similar is troubling.
What happens when it is is decided that _Das Kapital_, and the philosophical/economic/political system it advocates is viewed as unacceptable? Alternatively, substitute _The Bhagavad Gita_, or _The Book of Coming Forth By Day_.

Then there is the issue of commenting on issues of the day, when those issues involve unsavory ideas, characters, actions, economic systems, or political theories.

You are right you know, and that's part of this whole problem. People on the far right and left have been complaining and getting perfectly civil youtube channels demonitized that merely espouse a different opinion than they hold.

The real freakshow channels were the first and easiest targets.

I'm pretty certain that Youtube has figured out where this all ends up, and it is a lot less money for them.

Re "I've never understood why companies want to wade into arguments about what is acceptable speech."
Place a political sign for an election in the front yard..
Will the electric, telephone, gas, internet and water company stop all services as they don't like the local politics?

Once a few big "social" media sites get too big they become a service needed to interact with local, state, federal governments?
People have their freedom of speech but won't be found by a search engine, have their political com

It's actually not. For years this worked fine until some far left activists (ie. the old media) started making a load of noise about "some neo-Nazi videos". Until then people didn't give a shit and nor should they.

I think your political scale is miscalibrated. If the Guardian, widely regarded as a fairly centrist newspaper in the UK, is in your mind a far left activist then what are actual communists? Where does the Morning Star lie on your axis? Even the Mirror is much further left than the Guardian and way left of the WaPo.

No it wouldnâ(TM)t. They wouldâ(TM)ve switched ad agencies and continue doing what theyâ(TM)re doing as soon as everything blew over. Corporations really donâ(TM)t care what they are put on as long as it is profitable, if there is a demographic within ISIS they wouldâ(TM)ve been glad to advertise to them.

If they marketed to ISIS they would quickly find that other customers started to avoid them. Like how Tiki torches are desperate not to become associated with Nazis because it would make their other customers buy fewer and the Nazi market isn't that big.

The simplest solution would be for Google to simply say "all or nothing".

No, an even simpler solution would be to not run any ads at all. It's even simpler than yours since they wouldn't have the burden of running the ad infrastructure. Of course then they wouldn't make any money.

And that's where your simplest solution falls down: they tried it since it's cheap and it turned out they didn't make as much money as they could because major advertisers left.

Companies don't want to get dragged into free speech debates, but sometimes they have no choice.

Take the NFL, for example. Some years back they started injecting more patriotism into their games - anthem singing, flags everywhere. It was great, almost everyone loved it (America being a country where displays of patriotism are widely admired), and they even got some government grant money for it.

Then a few players decide they don't want to take part, as they no longer feel they admire the country to that ext

YouTube is not a broadcasting company. If people watch a video, it's because they choose to watch it, meaning they like the content. Companies refusing to display ads for their products before some content is pretty much like saying : because you like this content, we don't like you and we don't want you to buy our product.

It looks to me companies in the US now prefer to push a political agenda rather than to make a profit.

I actually see it rather prominently done on the other side. Pretty much every video of every channel that's dedicated to firearms sports is immediately demonetized... no matter how tame, apolitical, or polite it is.

It's done on both sides of the political spectrum, as well as a lot of content that isn't political at all. The only difference I've noticed is that a slightly higher proportion of right-wing YouTubers seem to think it's only happening to them, and blame it on "left wing media bias," whereas the lefties call it "corporate media bias."

I can only speak for the leftist circles I move in, but we are well aware that it's 4chan and right wing YouTube users. They discuss it quite openly, there is no need to guess.

Anyway, we have a better technique. Check out Operation Shiny Object. A guy called "Bearing" has been harassing small YouTube channels, with his mob of supporters. But he has a weakness: he can't resist responding to criticism. All we had to do was make a quick video or two every week and he couldn't resist making a long response, whi

I think we're talking about two different but related things: the "it" I'm referring to is YouTube demonetizing videos, whereas you seem to be talking about groups of people deliberately flagging videos as offensive.(?) My only point is that the demonetizing happens to everybody, not just the left or the right.

Makes sense. Stupid people cannot accept voices disagreeing with them, because they cannot grasp the idea that they may be wrong themselves. Hence they create a filter-bubble and make the world a bit worse for everybody.

Anyways, I much rather give to Patreon for my favorite creators and block ads completely.

Well, ignoring facts in decisions is pretty much one of the core definitions of "stupid".

You probably confuse "stupid" with "of low intelligence". The two do not match. People with low intelligence can be very much not stupid by clearly understanding what they do and do not understand and seeking expert advice on the latter. The problem stupid people have (even those of high intelligence) is vastly over-estimating their skills and hence arriving at invalid conclusions, such as to which facts do matter and w

Politics is one controversial category. Religion is another.It's fine to flag those, but they need to be distinguished. One advertiser might be fine with political controversy, but don't want to be associated with religious views. Another might be the opposite.And I think they should have an informed choice where they put their advertising dollars.But that means finding out exactly why people found it controversial, and not just that.

A lot of people think that creators won't move to a new platform until a new, BIGGER audience can be found somewhere else. I believe that any minimally viable video platform that has monitization that works at all, and can import back catalogs in some sort of reasonable manner is all that is required to start an avalanche. That shift would start with simply having content on multiple platforms, and letting viewers try out the new platform.

It needn't even be bigger. If someone who now has a million viewers that pay him nothing because he's demonetized and could have 10k elsewhere where he actually gets paid for it, he's gone. Because 10k times x (with x > 0) is more than a million times zero.

In fact some of the biggest youtube channels have even bigger audiences outside of youtube. Joe Rogan says he gets way more views and makes way more money on podcast subscriptions than he does youtube monetization, and this is a guy that easily surpasses 1 billion views per year just on youtube.

Basically the internet has greatly surpassed traditional media as far as viewership numbers go, and its not even close any more. Its the big secret that the media will not talk about.

I run a huge channel and about 1 in 5 of my PG-rated content is being flagged. 100% of the appeals were reversed by a human, indicating the bot is wrong. It's basically random at this point. Creators are PISSED and they're moving to Twitch. Youtube needs to send snowflakebot back to its safe space and tell these marketing reps for companies whining about MAAAHH AAADDDSSS to fuck off. You don't need all advertisers, especially progressive liberal nut jobs whining about their ads being on Christian and gun channels.

Why is youtube an all-or-nothing advertising platform anyways? Why arent the advertisers allowed to choose exactly where they place there ads?

In every other case of advertising, advertisers have input. "We want this ad to be played 20 times this month during initial airing of The Walking Dead".. advertisers arent buying time expecting prime placement and then being shoved into the 3am spot when the 3rd rerun of Sports Center is being shown.

No, but you do need ones with big pockets. When your prominent customers stop working with you then *you* need to change. Telling them to bugger off only works if your business doesn't depend on them for income.

Just because X company says, "We don't want our advert next to any drug-related video (including harm-reduction)" doesn't mean that every advertiser feels the same stupid way. Just give advertisers the option to check-box exactly what type of videos they freak out about without just assuming a one-size-fits-all. Probably most advertisers don't care or would rather not impact on free speech, given the choice.

Running fewer ads just makes YouTube less money. Why don't they have a scheme where the advertisers choose what kinds of videos they want to be associated with. I'm sure there's lots of sleazy or politically-partisan advertisers for everyone.

Forward all the 'oh dear I feel so triggered' complaints to a queue accessible to the individual advertisers whose ads showed up on the page. With text of the complaint. Give complainers a blank space and force them to type something rather than select from a list. If the advertisers really care they will have someone monitor the queue, can read the complaints and decide. If they flag it will keep that advertiser off of that channel or that video.

Ya? So what? An atheist politely discusses sexual abuse in churches and they get demonetized. Someone talks about gay marriage and they get demonetized. Someone calls out Trump's bullshit and they get demonetized.

I am a photographer, and admin of groups numbering over 20,000 members. I am also currently in Fb jail because of an image I posted that shows a female and a small amount of pubic hair. No nipple, no bum, no labia.

Because the policy was causing lots of highly-popular content creators to consider ditching YouTube for other sites. They want to make money for their videos, and if YouTube is going to stop the flow of revenue they have no reason to post there. But, not-coincidentally, people go to YouTube to watch the videos of those creators. If those videos stop appearing there people have less reason to go to YouTube.

See how the system benefits publishers and creators as well when there is no exclusivity contract locki

The SJW jumped the shark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
People are now looking for real sites to host their video clips. The fun people, smart people started looking for better sites.
Sites that allow media to be uploaded, search for, linked to and commented on without the complexity of SJW.

The need to to censor was not a good policy as top "social" media sites are not unique anymore in bandwidth support and encoding support.
Other better, smarter, more fun sites will emerge from the censorship that

Re Germany AC, East Germany kept a watch over its authors, journalists, editors and publishers.
Just as SJW now watch over videos, news, movie review, politics, arts, culture, history and block content and comments....
The people of East Germany had to work hard to get freedom back.

Indeed. And they critically depend on people continuing to make content for them, so they have to make sure enough money ends up with the content creators. This "demonetizing" nonsense indicates they do not understand their own business model.

People turned to YouTube exactly because TV was regulated into oblivion and all that was left was cookie-cutter, family friendly "entertainment" that was about as entertaining and exciting as watching the linoleum warp in a moist Summer.

Now YouTube is supposed to be turned into the same kind of bullshit, and we're moving on to something less linoleum-y.

Some of the most popular TV programming of all time would not be allowed today.

All in the Family for instance could not get past a pilot episode today. Someones feelings might get hurt.

Meanwhile the casting couch rape culture and pedophile rings of Hollywood are only just now being noticed.. Hollywood is full of a bunch of hypocrite assholes that think all their own problems are also part of everyone elses lives. I got news for you Hollywood... what the rest of the country isnt... is like Hol